Convoy, vessels sailing under the protection of an armed escort. Originally, convoys of merchant ships were formed as a protection against pirates. Since the 17th century, neutral powers have claimed the “right of convoy”; that is, immunity from search for neutral merchant vessels sailing under the convoy of a warship of the neutral. England, the dominant naval power, refused to recognize this right. Among states recognizing the right of convoy were the United States, Austria, and France. Great Britain deviated from its position only during the Crimean War in order to harmonize its practice with that of its French ally.

In the Declaration of London, 1909, the principal powers, including Great Britain, recognized and formalized the right of neutral convoy. The London declaration failed to enter into force, however. During World War I the right of convoy was invoked on only one or two occasions.

Convoys were to serve a totally different purpose during World War I—the protection of British merchant shipping against German surface raiders and submarines. The German practice of proclaiming as war zones large areas of the high seas and waging unrestricted submarine war on belligerent and neutral commercial shipping left the British no alternative to the practice of consolidating merchant vessels into large, protected groups, or convoys. The advantage of using convoys was that defenseless merchant vessels no longer need traverse the high seas alone and unprotected, but could travel in groups large enough to justify the allocation of scarce destroyers and other patrol vessels to escort them across the Atlantic. These warships, whose guns, torpedoes, and depth charges were more than a match for any submarine, would form a protective screen or cordon around the central core of merchant vessels. In order to come within striking distance of the merchant ships, the German submarines would themselves come under the deadly guns of the escort ships. Although the convoy system was not adopted in World War I until losses of British merchant ships became catastrophic in 1917, it then quickly proved effective.

During World War II the convoy system was developed to its fullest extent, and it played a decisive role in achieving victory against the formidable German submarine fleet formed to prey on Allied shipping. The new use of sonar, air escorts, specially designed rescue ships, and voice radio communications permitted convoys to be more easily coordinated, and afforded greater protection against the new German tactics of marshalling U-boats into “wolf packs” of 8 or even 20 submarines that would intercept convoys and attack them at night en masse. The effectiveness of the convoy system during World War II can be seen in the fact that of the approximately 2,700 Allied and neutral merchant vessels sunk by submarines, less than 30% were torpedoed while sailing in convoy, while 60% were unescorted and the rest were stragglers from convoys. From 1939 to 1942, 4,435 Allied and neutral ships were lost from all causes, including U-boats. From 1943, when the convoy system became fully operational, only 1,452 Allied and neutral ships were lost. Conversely, the failure of the Imperial Japanese Navy to develop an effective convoy system led to the almost total destruction of the Japanese merchant marine by U.S. submarines from 1943 to 1945.

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